


Goddard Used to be a Lot Scarier

by Sarah1281



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, Humor, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 12:42:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14716253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah1281/pseuds/Sarah1281
Summary: After the survivors of Wolf 359 return to Earth, they make it their mission to inconvenience Goddard Futuristics as much as humanly possible. Goddard Futuristics has thoughts on that and apparently the fundraiser Doug is holding for deaf children is the perfect place to force them to have this conversation where they can't escape. Doug doesn't entirely get what is happening or where Renée found that harpoon.





	Goddard Used to be a Lot Scarier

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the Wolf 359 Reverse Big Bang.  
> The artist who provided the wonderful art piece I was working off of is Jasmine. You can find her at moonshine-fanarts.tumblr.com  
> Link to picture: moonshine-fanarts.tumblr.com/post/174104828107/a-part-of-the-rbb-for-wolf-359-theres-a-story

Doug knew enough to know that this was a terrible idea.

He didn’t know a lot (or, rather, he did but not about the things he used to or that people seemed to expect him to. Certainly not about Goddard fucking Futuristics) but he knew that.

Goddard Futuristics had bought twenty plates at the fundraiser they were assisting with.

That was bad.

He didn’t know exactly what was going to happen but just them being there was bad. Everyone was quite clear on that.

But they couldn’t back out. Even if the fact that they were an important part of organizing it was not sufficient motivation, the fundraiser was for deaf children. There was never any question of them not attending.

Which brought them to their current predicament.

Somehow, he and Renée had gotten separated from the rest of the group. Somehow they had ended up in a room alone with eight people he knew to be Goddard employees. Now, it was not the case that he remembered them, of course. Rather, Isabel and Daniel had sat him down his first week back on Earth and went over flashcards of everyone who worked at Goddard and regularly kept him updated on their new hires.

Doug knew better than to say that it really did seem that they were more obsessed with Goddard than Goddard was with them but that didn’t stop him from thinking it, loudly and in their general direction, quite a lot.

He saw Renée take a step back and hurried to follow her. It wasn’t as though he were planning on hiding behind her or anything. That would be far too difficult and she was undoubtedly planning on moving around too much for that. But he just really didn’t want to be the one standing closer to the Goddard people. Nor did he think it was a particularly a good idea to be standing in between his former boss or whatever and his former employers or something.

He tripped over what appeared to be nothing and fell crashing to the floor.

Two of the Goddard employees rushed forward to…help? Maybe? That’s what normal people would do. But apparently working at Goddard disqualified you from being a normal person.

Was he clutching not at all pathetically to Renée’s leg? Maybe. It was just, you know, to steady him. In case he tripped again and managed to fall while already on the ground. There were really only so many hits that his pride could take.

“Stay back,” Renée warned, brandishing a harpoon all of a sudden.

The Goddard people stopped in their tracks. He didn’t blame them. As a matter of fact, if it had been him he’d have run from the room entirely.

“Where the hell did you even get that?” Doug asked incredulously.

“I always travel armed,” Renée explained as if that made any sort of sense whatsoever. Her dress was too tight and low-cut to conceal anything and she didn’t have a purse.

“Renée, please, we just want to talk,” one of them said, raising a hand calmly.

“Save it, Thompson,” Renée barked. “And don’t call me Renée. It’s Minkowski.”

“Really?” Thompson said, tilting her head to the side. “And here I thought you were going by Renée these days. Part of your retreat into softer civilian life following your return to Earth.”

“Not for you, I’m not,” Renée said, waving the harpoon emphatically. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that however soft and civilian I might seem that I would hesitate in taking down each and every last one of you.”

Thompson’s eyes flickered down to Doug. “It’s not as though I doubt your competence, Minkowski. We all read the reports. But harpoons tend to be projectile weapons and you might find your movement a bit…hampered.”

Renée gave Doug an expected look and he quickly let go and clamored to his feet.

“Why are we talking about murdering people at this fundraiser?” he demanded. “Why is this a thing that is happening?”

“Who said anything about murder?” Thompson asked innocently. “I am merely admiring Minkwoski’s prowess with a harpoon. Interesting choice of weapon, I must say.”

Renée shrugged, not lowering her guard one inch. “What can I say? I have fond memories attached to this.”

“Oh, please tell me you mean when you executed our boss and not some played-out Moby Dick metaphor,” Thompson said.

“There’s a lot of words I could use to describe what happened up there,” Renée said. “Including slavery, might I just say, but execution isn’t really one of them. Not when it came to Cutter.”

There was something about the way she said that that made Doug look curiously at her but she was staring straight ahead.

“Can everyone just calm down for like two seconds?” Doug asked. “We are literally at a fundraiser for deaf children.”

“I know where we’re at, Doug,” Thompson said, a touch condescendingly. “We paid for our plates.”

“You will address him as Eiffel,” Renée snapped.

“Will I?” Thompson asked idly. “Tell me, Doug, is that what you want?”

Honestly, it really wasn’t. He hated being referred to by his last name. It felt too much like that man he had never met and never would and everyone wanted him to be so badly but would never give him the chance to be.

But he had to have Renée’s back here, even if he really didn’t understand what was going on.

“Yeah,” Doug said, his throat dry. “Yeah, call me Eiffel.”

“Officer Eiffel it is,” Thompson said pleasantly.

Doug tried very hard to ignore the sudden tightness in his chest.

“Why does this always have to end in violence, Minkowski?” Thompson asked.

Renée smiled tightly. “Nothing’s gotten violent yet. Maybe try working on your optimism a little.”

“It’s already gotten to threats of violence or perhaps it started with threats of violence. I do take your point, however. Why do you always need to engage in such violent rhetoric whenever we approach you?”

“I think you know why,” Renée said.

“Would I be asking if I did?”

“You wouldn’t be asking if you didn’t,” Renée said.

Thompson laughed. “What do you take me for? A lawyer? No matter.”

“What do you guys even want from us?” Doug asked.

“What makes you think we want anything, Officer Eiffel?”

“Well you won’t go away even though it’s clear no one wants you here. And, fine, whatever, stay at the fundraiser you contributed to like I’m sure you care so much about the kids. But Minkowski and I don’t want to talk to you so you’re either just being huge dicks or you want something from us.”

“I wouldn’t put it past them for it to just be the former,” Renée said.

“Perhaps we wouldn’t have to go to such lengths if you weren’t so keen on avoiding us,” Thompson said.

“You could always take a hint,” Doug said. “I really don’t think we’re being at all subtle here.”

Thompson laughed. “We know you all don’t want to talk to us.”

Renée narrowed her eyes. “But since when has what anyone else wanted mattered one bit to the great Goddard Futuristics?”

“You do realize that those responsible to whatever happened to you are all dead, yes?” Thompson asked rhetorically.

“And yet their successors will not stop harassing us,” Renée noted.

“Despite what you might think, we’re not actually out to get you,” Thompson said.

“It’s too bad,” Renée said tossing her harpoon from one hand to the other and back again. “If you were then I might have grounds to actually use this. As it stands, I feel if I did that it would just make me the asshole here.”

“Well I’m glad that me being from Goddard isn’t a crime so heinous you can justify executing me on sight.”

Renée barked out a laugh. “Oh, trust me, Thompson, if it was you would know by now.”

“I mean, I’m nearly positive that little arson problem we’re having is you but we’re still looking into that.”

As it happened, that was not Renée. It was Isabel and Daniel but Doug knew far better than to say that. It was a technicality anyway.

“You still haven’t explained why you’re here forcing your presence on us,” Doug said. “Surely you’ve got better ways to spend your evening?”

“I do, as a matter of fact,” Thompson agreed. “But I was hoping I could convince you to stop telling the story about how Goddard Futuristics is responsible for everything from the Lindbergh baby to the Zodiac Killer to every major press outlet at every available opportunity.”

“Since when is Goddard associated with Ted Cruz?” Doug asked innocently. Yep, he still had it.

Thompson paused and just stared at him. “Why are you like this?”

Doug shrugged. “I would like to blame Goddard for as much of it as possible.”

“That’s always a safe bet,” Renée said, nodding. “Thompson, I want to make sure that you’re not unaware of the fact that we are also talking to every minor press outlet and blogger and podcaster and Youtuber that we can find. We have our own Discord. We’ll just talk to large groups of people or if we’re waiting long enough in line at Starbucks.”

“I’m well-aware,” Thompson ground out. “And I’m here to ask you to stop.”

“Huh. How about that?” Renée asked rhetorically. She glanced Doug’s way. “What do you think? Should we stop?”

“At this point I’m don’t even know who I am without regular complaints about Goddard,” Doug said, exaggerating a bit less than he’d like to be.

“Well there you have it,” Renée said. “You know all about his memory problems, of course. We can’t very well take away such an important cornerstone of his identity.”

Thompson closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. “You’ve had your fun. We get it. Your trip to Wolf 359 sucked.”

“I feel you just saying that is a gross oversimplification of how awful it was,” Renée said. “And you don’t get to decide when enough is enough.”

“Yeah, we took a vote and we’re hardly fortune tellers but right now it’s looking like there will never be such a thing as enough,” Doug added.

“I mean, how do you make up for losses like Hilbert or Dr. Maxwell or Kepler or Eiffel’s memory?” Renée asked.

Thompson looked at her incredulously. “Are you even kidding me right now?”

“I have never once kidded in my life,” Renée said and in that moment, despite having seen evidence to the contrary, Doug believed her.

“You hated Hilbert. We have the logs.”

“He was a valued member of the team,” Renée insisted.

“Who we also hated,” Doug said. “But hatred doesn’t really diminish ones value. He was very good at sciencing and stuff.”

“Jacobi killed him,” Thompson said.

“He was still working for you at the time,” Renée pointed out.

“As were you!”

“I think you’ll find the event in question was our official termination of our employment,” Renée said.

“In all honesty, we really should have quit that time Cutter ordered Hilbert to kill us,” Doug said. “But I guess we wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“Kepler’s death was a suicide,” Thompson said. “And he worked for us. We would have fired him but he died first and at this point it’s just petty. I don’t want to hear anything about how he quit just because he stabbed us in the back at the last minute. He definitely did not do that and he’s not here now to tell us what he meant.”

“We could always call Jacobi in here, see what he has to say,” Doug offered. “I mean, he spoke Kepler better than any of us.”

“Oh, yes, let’s bring him in here,” Renée said, nodding.

“How about not,” Thompson said flatly. “Or am I to assume that you wouldn’t mind this fundraiser literally blowing up?”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Doug said unconvincingly. He’d probably try not to but Goddard would just say something and piss him off and he already got pissed off when anything to do with Goddard came up or someone other than him brought up Kepler.

“Anyway, Kepler’s death wasn’t even remotely a suicide! Rachel Young threw him out an airlock,” Renée said.

“I saw the security footage, same as you,” Thompson said. “And that level of monologuing and standing right in front of an airlock after fatally shooting someone who already hates him and revealing he was betraying the company can only be interpreted as assisted suicide on Miss Young’s part.”

Doug just stared at her. Why was he even surprised anymore? “You guys really suck. Like, you’re the literal worst.”

Thompson rolled her eyes. “So you keep saying. How exactly are we to blame for Hera choosing to erase Officer Eiffel’s memory? Didn’t she quit when you all did? She was firmly on your side in all conflicts unless her programming was literally overridden.”

“AI don’t get to just ‘quit’,” Doug said so heatedly he surprised himself a little. “AI aren’t seen as people or employees and their personal autonomy is completely disregarded even by people who claim to care about them all the time! Don’t you go blaming any of this on her. She did the best she could and it’s a damn sight better than anyone else could have done!”

“Well as the injured party I’m sure you’d know,” Thompson said lightly. “But it’s still not on us.”

“Eiffel wouldn’t have had to erase his memory in the first place if he didn’t have Miranda fucking Pryce holding his very memories hostage trying to find a way to literally wipe out all life on Earth and replace them with weird alien clones,” Renée snapped.

Sorry, Isabel. The whole thing was kind of weird.

“None of that can be substantiated-” Thompson started to say then cut herself off. “We’ll get back to that. The choice was still Officer Eiffel’s, hopefully, and Hera’s.”

Doug couldn’t be sure. There was no real way to know. But he trusted Hera more than he trusted anyone and if she said he understood then he understood.

“And you literally killed Dr. Maxwell. You yourself did, Minkowski. While she was a loyal Goddard employee and you were…how did you put it? Quitting? How can that one possibly be on us, even in your warped version of events?” Thompson demanded.

“Her death became necessary after the seeming death of Captain Lovelace,” Renée said simply. “It was a direct result of the mutiny which was only necessary because of the literal years of shit you put us through. I could expound on this further but how much time do you really have?”

"Look, you’re not going to convince us,” Doug said. “I doubt we’ll ever convince you. So you asked us not to keep telling everyone our version of events and we said it’s not going to happen. Is that all? Because you can feel free to leave at any time.”

Thompson ignored that. “I’m not just going to go away and stop asking.”

“Yes, well, we are well-prepared for the attempts on our lives to start,” Renée said calmly. “I think Jacobi and Lovelace are a disappointed they haven’t already, to be honest. Me? I like the peace.”

“Why don’t you just get an injunction or sue us for slander or something?” Doug asked. “Something more productive than coming here to bother us.”

Granted, he highly doubted that there was any ruling from a judge that would get Daniel or Isabel to stop saying whatever they felt like saying about Goddard. He was even more skeptical that the justice system would be fully prepared to take them in if they were only looking to go after them for ignoring court orders. And Daniel in particular had been toying with the idea of going off the grid just for the fun of it so he certainly wouldn’t have a problem with doing it for his grand crusade or whatever.

Thompson took a moment to answer. “That is certainly still an option though we would prefer to handle this without having to involve the legal system. It is a simple matter of he-said, she-said and there’s no proof of any of this beyond your recordings which are highly selective and aren’t secure and tamper-proof. Whole events may have been made up wholesale. Your people are hardly unbiased here.”

Suddenly Renée’s eyes lit up. “But you can’t do that, can you? Or rather, you’d rather go through a lot of effort to avoid it.”

Doug frowned. “Catch me up, Minkowski?”

“That’s not-” Thompson started to say.

“Well then correct me where I’m wrong,” Renée interrupted. “Right now we’re telling everyone but we’re just a couple of people who are all mysteriously not dead after our deaths were faked. And Jacobi, I guess, who was always fully alive. But you give us the credibility of going after us like that? I mean, sure, some could say you not suing us is an admission it’s true but it’s just as interpretable as our claims being too ridiculous to bother yourselves with given what a giant corporation Goddard Futuristics is. If you try to sue us we’ll have to all give affidavits and maybe there’s no proof either way but a lot of it gets out there in a very public way and it just brings even more attention to all of this. No, far easier to just try and shut us up.”

Thomson didn’t say anything but there was a terrible stillness on her face.

Damn Renée was brilliant.

“Now’s about the time you’d try to bribe us,” Doug said helpfully. He’d always wanted to be bribed.

“It’s not bribery,” Thompson said stiffly. “It’s a NDA.”

“Eiffel, tell Thompson where she can stick her NDA.”

Doug knew this one. “In the fridge!”

Renée gave him a long-suffering look. “Seriously, why are you like this?”

Doug just laughed.

Renée turned back to the group of Goddard employees who were all watching her with barely-contained anticipation and scorn. “We’re leaving. The first one who tries to follow us is getting harpooned, I swear to God.”

And as Doug and Renée made their way back to the fundraiser, strangely, no one decided to try and call their bluff.


End file.
